Pharos gps 135 Supplementary Manual

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A Brief Introduction to GPS Navigation 
By Brian Underdahl, best-selling “For Dummies” author 
 
Okay, so you’ve been hearing about these GPS things for some time and you finally 
decided to see for yourself just what the fuss is all about. Welcome to the world of GPS 
navigation! 
A Few New Terms Demystified  
Let’s start out with some brief explanations of a few of the terms that experienced GPS 
users throw about without even realizing that they’re talking a sort of unintelligible code 
that most of us don’t understand. You’re going to see these terms quite often so let’s get 
rid of the mystery right now: 
 
• 
GPS is an abbreviation for Global Positioning System. This is a bunch of 
satellites that the US government launched into very precise orbits so that 
the signals from the satellites could be used to determine exactly where you 
were at any place on Earth. There’s a lot of fancy math involved, but 
fortunately your GPS receiver handles all the tricky stuff for you and simply 
shows your position on a map. 
• 
Waypoints are simply places you specify along a route from where you are 
to where you want to go (in fact, that’s why we call them Saved Places in 
Ostia). For example, suppose you want to go to the movies but you need to 
stop at the ATM first to get some cash for the tickets. A direct route to the 
theatre won’t work because you’ll miss your bank (and the ATM). So 
instead of a simple route with just a starting and ending point, you add a 
third point—a saved place—in between the starting and ending points. That 
saved place is, of course, the location of the ATM. Saved places don’t have 
to be specific destinations, though. In some cases a saved place is simply 
something you use in order to make certain that your route uses your 
preferred path—such as a particular scenic highway instead of a faster but 
boring Interstate. 
• 
Points of Interest are various places that you might be interested in setting 
as a destination (or as a saved place). Points of interest are pretty handy 
because they are places that your GPS navigation device knows how to find 
without requiring that you know their address. For example, you probably 
know where your bank is located but you might not know its exact address. 
Or, if you’re on a trip, you might be interested in finding a motel or a 
restaurant that’s somewhere along your route. By accessing the points of